All posts for the month August, 2013

I’m 97% sure this is the author. Pics of Mira Grant came up when I searched Seanan McGuire. Curiousity is going to call me back to google to find out what that’s about.

My sister hooked my iPhone up to her Kindle account, which means I just got a great big addition to my library! The first book that I read was Seanan McGuire’s Discount Armageddon. This is the first of her “InCryptid” novel series featuring the protagonist Verity Price, Very for short or Valerie Pryor to the world of ballroom dancing. See, now I know you’re hooked BTs, who doesn’t love a protagonist with a separate alias just for ballroom dancing competitions?

Outside her interest in dancing our heroine is also a waitress and a cryptozoologist (which in this world translates into a peacekeeper/monster hunter/scientist), making sure that the cryptids, as they are called in the book, function within the human world and setting straight the ones that cause trouble. As you can imagine Ms. Price lives a very busy life that gets even more complicated when a member of the Covenant of St. George comes to town. The Covenant train their members to be hardcore monster hunters, only seeing the world in black and white, humans good monsters bad. It’s up to Verity to teach him the error of their ways or stop them from hunting down innocent cryptids.

Overall this book was a fast paced, fun read. The characters are witty, funny, and real. My only complaint is that I don’t think that the title really suits the story, but even that I can’t hold against McGuire because trust me BTs, titles can be difficult. With that very tiny complaint stated I’m ready to get back to the excitement of the “InCryptid” world with the second book in the series, Midnight Blue-Light Special.

I finally saw Gangster Squad! I’m a bit of an Emma Stone fanatic so I’ve wanted to see this movie for a while now. I didn’t go to see it in theaters, mostly ‘cause I’m poor, but also because I was worried it was going to be a let down. (The last time Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling were in a movie together I couldn’t even finish it because I hated it so much. Plus it got too much advertising, which tends to be a bad sign.) The movie turned out to be better than I expected. It felt very much like this generation’s version of The Untouchables.

If you haven’t seen either movie I’ll give you the basics. A group of police officers that can’t be bought by the mafia come together in a battle for the good of the city to take down the criminal organization. You get the picture: lots of gunplay and tough guy moments. Like I said, those are just the basics, I don’t want to ruin the movies for you with a ton of spoilers. They’re definitely worth a watch, especially if you like gangster movies.

I think that Gangster Squad is a good addition to the list of classic gangster films. Aside from the previously mentioned gunplay, we also get some good pyro moments and a classic garrote-style murder. What mob movie would be complete without someone being choked from behind with rope? In fact, it’s kind of inspired me to want to have a gangster movie marathon. Maybe I’ll finally watch all three Godfather movies in a row. Break out the popcorn machine!

I was recently helping a friend pick out baby clothes. One, because she had a family with a baby coming to stay with her, and two, because it’s funny to make babies look ridiculous. But while we were walking around the store I came across these shoes that had mouse faces on them, which gave my friend and me a new game to play: “Not Suitable for Adults” or “Cute for Kids, Not for Hipsters!” I’ve found that hipsters will really wear anything if they think it’ll set them apart or catch people’s eyes, so I image this game will be easy to play as they continue to spread unchecked. (We really have to do something about this, BTs. Next time you see a hipster take the most ridiculous part of their outfit away from them and burn it!) Anyway, check out the pics below and if you’re out shopping and see something that would be cute on a little kid but you just know that some hipster is wearing it out there, take a pic and send it to me on Facebook!

Bed Bath & Beyonds are now selling trash bins designed by award winning designer, Karim Rashid. That’s right, you can now toss your garbage in a receptacle created by an artist that has work in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Montreal Museum of Decorative Art, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts. Sounds like a pretty fancy trash bin, doesn’t it? Well here’s the best part: BB&B isn’t charging you an arm and a leg to have your artistic trash bin; it’s only $6.99! I’m thinking of getting one myself, and not just because a semi-famous guy designed it. The multicolor splatter look of these bins actually suits my love of abstract expressionism. Now comes the hard part, picking which one to buy!

With Katy and Gaga bringing out new stuff, a lot of you are probably literally dancing with joy. But today isn’t about the reigning divas holding strong; instead I wanted to tell you about an artist on the rise. Lorde is my newest obsession! She’s brought out an EP and a single so far this year. There aren’t a lot of songs available from her yet, but she’s a perfect example of that old phrase “quality over quantity.”

Listening to her EP The Love Club made me feel like I was in the middle of one of those slow motion dance scenes that get juxtaposed with a steamy sex scene in a movie. There’s some serious carnal feeling in the beats of these songs, BTs. Lorde’s sexy beats are complimented brilliantly with the flow she brings to her lyrics. Her songs “Royals” and “Tennis Court” are great examples of her ability to speed up and slow down her rhythm while singing. “Royals” is my personal favorite because of the hip-hop rhythm that she brings to a chorus that is critiquing hip-hop. (Plus the bromance in the music video is sort of sexy.) Check out the video for a taste of this awesome new artist.

I stepped out of my comfort zone in this week’s book and checked out Killers: The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Times. It’s a collection of true crimes written by Nigel Cawthorne that tells the stories of killers like Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and quite a few others. Generally I’m not a fan of immortalizing criminals; why reward them with the satisfaction that they’ll be remembered long after they’re gone? Plus I already have enough fictional murders in my head from watching television. I made an exception with this book for two reasons: one, it was a bargain book at B&N and two, I’ve heard so many Dahmer references in the past few years that I wanted to know more about the story than just the basic fact that it involved cannibalism.

Each chapter of the book is dedicated to a different killer and their accomplice(s). The chapters all start of with the basic stats of the criminal including accomplice, nationality, number of victims, method of killing, year born, reign of terror, motive, and execution date. These stats vary of course based on what could be gathered from the crimes. Reading through, it was hard to keep in mind that this wasn’t fiction. Not because I can’t believe people are capable of such horrors but because it is put together based on crime reports and witness stories yet they have been written as if the author knows that’s exactly what happened. This book definitely feels more like fiction and guesswork than hard-hitting nonfiction, especially in chapters like The Boston Strangler. He is listed as Albert DeSalvo, but then in the stats portion it says that he was never caught or formally identified. If you plan on checking the book out for yourself then you can draw your own conclusions based on the information that they did have, but for me even if there’s a tiny bit of doubt I’m not going to be fully satisfied that it’s the truth.

Unless you’re for some reason obsessed with true crime books or have an itching question about one of the killers in this book, I’d say this one is skipable. I’m sure there are better true crime novels out there, and probably better ways to find out the facts about you killer questions.

“OMG you guys IDEHTW!!!” Those of you that remember my post on the web series Husbands and became fans you might have gotten that reference. (Good for you! You rock!) If you haven’t checked it out yet, what are you possibly waiting for? The series has just been adopted by the CW as they attempt to stay current with online programs. The CW Seed (the network’s online platform) will be airing the new episodes. Any of you that became as obsessed with the series as I did have probably seen the first new episode by now and are gagging on the hilarity that will be coming this season.

The cast in past seasons has been heavy with appearances by some of Joss Whedon’s favorite actors and even Joss Whedon himself. It seems like the new season won’t be any different as Amy Acker (featured in two of Whedon’s major shows and two of his recent movies) joins the cast as Brady’s ex from before he came out of the closet and fell for Cheeks. Hopefully being taken on as one of the flagships of the CW Seed will bring the show a large audience and won’t mean any changes for the creative team.

If this is the first you’ve heard of the series or you just need to refresh for the new season, check out the GoCheeksGo channel on YouTube. The first episode is already up on The CW Seed for your viewing pleasure. I’m already loving it and can’t wait for the rest of the season!

I have no doubt that all of you fashionistas, or even those of you who simply have decent observation skills, have noticed that denim has risen to power again in the fashion world. While blue jeans will never really fade as a basic item held in most clothing stores, all the denim vests and shirts weren’t so commonplace until recently. I was looking through different jeans hitting the trendy fashion sites and I noticed a few pairs were adorning the knees with funky patterns. I’ve posted a few examples below, and I’m not really a big fan of this style to be honest. I’m hoping that it won’t make it as the next big thing in jeans, seeing as I only found one pair that looked like it could pull the look off. The worst of the bunch has got to be the ones that look as though the designers simply dyed one section of each leg slightly darker than the rest of the jeans. I’m usually a big supporter of adding a new twist on an old look, but in this case, I just can’t see what they were thinking with this trend.

With light pollution on the rise, stargazing isn’t the same to the average guy or gal off the street. You’d think that this would mean less artists looking to the night sky for inspiration, and even if that is the case, it certainly isn’t stopping Sergio Albiac. He has created a program that makes one-of-a-kind portraits inspired by the stars. The program combines images from the Hubble Space Telescope with images sent in by regular people like you and I to make Stardust Portraits. Albiac guarantees that through this process of combinations, no two portraits will be the same. Some of the portraits are clear representations of the person in the original picture or they can become a hodgepodge of starry blobs that only bares a passing resemblance to the original picture sent in.

If you want your very own Stardust Portrait, Albiac has put up four simple steps on his website so you can get in the running for a free digital portrait. I’ve reposted a few of his portraits that were featured in the article that lead me to this project. The rest of the portraits can be viewed on the project Stardust Portrait page on flickr. Each picture sent in is made into three different portraits generated by the program. Since the beginning of the flickr page in June of 2013, they have posted over ten thousand portraits. I’ve sent in a picture of myself so hopefully I’ll soon be joining the rest of these people and have my own face made of stardust.